I'm old enough to know that I don't have any answers, but that won't stop me talking
The American Dream is a phrase which was first articulated in that form in 1931, at the heart of the Great Depression. I suppose that there are some parallels between that time and now. James Truslow Adams, the populariser of the phrase, defined the American Dream as ‘a land in which life should be better …
Continue reading “The Great American Nightmare? The Ongoing Relevance of Sinclair Lewis”
The decision last week by Western Australian first term Senator Fatima Payman to resign from the Labor Party two years into her six year term and sit (for now) on the cross benches as a result of her stance on the Palestinian state issue has caused a problem for the Labor Party and an ironic …
Continue reading “Secularism, Sectarianism, and Australian Democracy”
I never have quite binged on Evelyn Waugh’s novels, which is probably a good thing. I was 15 when I first read Decline and Fall, which I loved, but then was disappointed by his second novel, Vile Bodies. I suppose that 15 year olds do not quite get the irony and the self-deprecating social commentary …
Continue reading “Will Artificial Intelligence Eliminate Wine Critics First?”
Ever since my Grade 4 teacher read The Hobbit to my class back in 1978, I have been a fan of Tolkien. I have lost track of the number of times I have read both The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, and I have read The Silmarillion three times (most recently after many …
Continue reading “The Disney Star Wars: When Fan Fiction Gets Out Of Control”
As I wrote a few days ago, I quite enjoyed Furiosa, the Mad Max spin off film. Sadly, it appears to have been a flop, which is quite sad as I have always loved Mad Max, and the Roadrunner cartoons (which are the perfect manifestation of this genre). News reports have emerged that the Australian …
Continue reading “$180 Million Flop? Funding Film to Promote Art and Culture….”
It took me quite a while to ‘get’ King Lear. Whilst familiar with Macbeth from high school English class, Romeo and Juliet and The Tempest from having read them independently in my teenage years [my initial copy of the Complete Works – I now own four (all unsurprisingly gifted to me) plus separate paperbacks of …
Continue reading “Reddit – The Rebirth of Greek Tragedy as a Social Media Trainwreck”
It’s nearly time we were leavin’We’ll have one more for the roadIt don’t mean nothin’It don’t mean nothin’ So we gather ’round the tableRaise our champagne in the airIt don’t mean nothin’It don’t mean nothin’ ‘Cause we’ve gotThis night together, we’ll haveHere now foreverAh, don’t tell me now, you canWrite me a letterWhere will we …
I am rather embarrassed to admit this, but many years ago I was friends with a mad keen Collingwood supporter. He was not typical of the rabid Collingwood supporter, mind you: he still had all his teeth, no tattoos, no criminal record, and had recently completed his law degree. We were close enough friends that I …
Continue reading “Compogate – Or Turning the Tables on Kathy Gallagher”
As a child, I was fond of watching the old Warner Brothers cartoons, you know: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester the Cat, and of course the Road Runner. Road Runner is an amusing cartoon series, where the laws of physics, particularly those of gravity, are defied, and there are frequent explosions and high …
Continue reading “Just Like The Road Runner: Mad Max Remains Fun And Relevant”
The sentencing of War Crimes whistleblower David McBride to over 5 years in prison last week was a sad day for justice in Australia. He is, to this point in time, the only person to be imprisoned in relation to the war crimes which were allegedly committed by Australians in Afghanistan. Six months ago, when …
Lost For Words!